Dublin' your money (spent)

I stumbled across this memorial of the Potato famine on my walk by the river.
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Arriving to the Dublin airport at 5am was a great idea until I disembarked the plane. The good news was I had the whole day to explore the city. The bad news was I didn't have a place to stay and no where was open. I finally found a hostel around 7am and settled in on the couch of the common room for a quick (2.5 hour) snooze since the room wasn't open until 3. When I woke I decided to take a groggy walk around the city. After all, getting lost is the best way to familiarize yourself with new surroundings

Malahide Castle
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On Friday we took a tour of Malahide Castle and the botanical gardens surrounding it which were beautiful. However, I was unimpressed by the tour itself. On Tuesday we explored the most important part of Dublin... The Guinness Storehouse! Dublin's a fine city and the people were pretty nice but overall I wasn't that wowed. It was clean and extremely expensive! There seems to be a big "go-green" agenda along with a pretty dramatic anti-litter campaign.I would love to go back to Ireland sometime soon because I've heard wonderful things about the countryside but I'll probably limit my time in Dublin.

Mmmmm... the most important part of the Guinness tour where I enjoyed a pint with my new friends Bertrand and Jean Christopher.
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Not a very exciting blog entry... I apologize, I hope for your sake they get better.  I did get a chance to meet with some people from admissions at the Royal College of Surgeons which was promising although it's not any cheaper and in fact is more expensive than many US schools but still it's a possibility. I'll keep you posted.